By Bobby Ross Jr. | Religion Unplugged
Good morning, Weekend Plug-in readers!
For today’s special year-end edition, I asked some of the nation’s top religion journalists to share their favorite or most important story they produced during 2023.
It’s a holiday week, so I didn’t catch up with everybody. But once again this year, I sure appreciate my Godbeat colleagues who responded — more than 60 in all.
Feel free to jump straight to the list, but I can’t resist a few quick notes:
• I’m wrapping up four years since launching Plug-in. This column/newsletter goes to more than 10,000 subscribers via email before it’s published on the ReligionUnplugged.com homepage. I’m so grateful for everyone who reads and shares Plug-in. Our goal is to provide the best roundup of religion news anywhere.
• I follow religion news and save interesting links throughout the week, but I typically write Plug-in early Friday morning. In other words, it’s a deadline labor of love with the typos to prove it. This part-time gig helps me stay on top of news and trends in the world of faith, but my full-time job is serving as editor-in-chief of The Christian Chronicle. In 2023, I was blessed to report from a dozen states and four countries (Australia, Cuba, Mexico and Vanuatu). My story from Down Under will publish early next year.
• I’ve spent 33 years in full-time journalism, including nearly a quarter-century focused on religion news (starting with Pope John Paul II’s visit to St. Louis in 1999). I’m inspired by longtime Godbeat pros — such as Adelle M. Banks, Michelle Boorstein, Greg Garrison, Carla Hinton, Frank Lockwood, Terry Mattingly, Bob Smietana, Peter Smith and Peggy Fletcher Stack — who keep producing amazing journalism year after year. And those are just the ones I managed to reach this week. Besides the old-timers, I’m excited about the newcomers — including Joy Ashford and Eric Killelea — covering religion.
• Many of the journalists who shared links found it difficult to pick just one. Several submitted multiple possibilities and asked me to choose, which I was happy to do. Menachem Wecker wins the award for most stories shared with 10. I included two links from only one writer, Clemente Lisi. He is ReligionUnplugged.com’s executive editor and the boss, after all! One Godbeat pro who had no difficulty with her pick was Sarah Pulliam Bailey. The former award-winning religion writer for the Washington Post is “taking a pause to hang out with my girls.” Thus, she quipped, “I wrote exactly one story so I guess this would be it!”
• A confession before we get to the list: I started this year-end approach a few years ago as a way to do a quick, easy post during the holidays. What in the world was I thinking? The reality is that this takes much longer than a normal Plug-in, but that’s OK. I truly enjoy connecting with my fellow journalists and sharing their best work.
Enjoy!
This column appears in the online magazine Religion Unplugged.
Featured image via Shutterstock
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